Mar 24 2009
Living Conditions
I have been accustomed to sleeping and living in a much smaller area than a boat. Have you ever seen the sleeper berth of a Peterbilt with a flat top roof ? You can’t stand up to change clothes you have to sit and lay on the bed. At 6’2” In Emmanuelle I can stand straight up in the galley and head, walking in the forward cabin I just need to bend my head down 3 inches.
The accommodations are rather rooming. My galley has an icebox, a drawer, two cabinets, a sink, a two burner stove top and a third cabinet that sits on the counter top, the head has a toilet, a counter with a little storage space, and a sink, just the galley and head alone have more room than any truck I drove and lived in. There are two berths to sleep in, the aft is a little bigger than a double and a little smaller than a queen, and the twin settees and forward couch in the forward cabin convert to a V shaped king sized bed. Not too shabby, huh?
You might have noticed I didn’t say anything about a shower in the head. That’s because there isn’t one. So until I install one and hook up a drain that go into the bilge, I have a camping shower that you fill with five gallons of water, lay it in the cockpit in the sun, and three hours later you have nice hot water. Then you take it and hang it from the boom, and the water is gravity fed thru the nozzle. The boom is the horizontal part of the mast that extends over the cockpit and swings side to side so the mainsail can catch the air. So the answer to the next question is yes, I take showers outside in the cockpit. That’s the living space I have, I have already talked a little about the head and power situation, so lets talk food and water. As far as the water situation, Emmanuelle has a 25 gallon fresh water holding tank under the forward section, this is the water that will be used for washing dishes, cooking, and bathing.
That’s the living space I have, I have already talked a little about the head and power situation in a previous blog, so lets talk food and water. As far as the water situation, Emmanuelle has a 25 gallon fresh water holding tank under the forward section, this is the water that will be used for washing dishes, cooking, and bathing.
For the drinking water, I will be taking along bottled water and refilling the bottles at docks I stop at along the way. And as far as food goes, you really have to plan out the meals before you go to the store. When you do this at home and realize Wednesday evening you don’t have soy sauce, you can just run to the store, not so aboard a boat.
Rice, oatmeal, Ramen noodles, peanut butter, pretty much anything that doesn’t need to be refrigerated works good. As far as meat goes, you can get cans of beef, pork, and turkey at the grocery. No not spam, but real meat. When you want a steak, hit the local grocery near a marina and cook her up. When I lived aboard my previous boat, steaks were a treat, but a common dinner for me at a dock was grilled chicken fettuccini with a nice bottle of merlot. And there are also restaurants and bars with docks for boaters to use to stop for dinner on the water. So see, conditions living aboard aren’t really as bad a some assume.
True, I cant just run around the corner for a pack of smokes or a beer, so you have to plan it out a little better and make sure your provisions can last for the length of time you plan to be away from shore. And then you also have to plan for the worst, what if you get to sailing and you cant make it back to land when you planned? You make sure you have extra water and some emergency foods in place.
That’s where the Army-Navy Surplus stores come in handy. M.R.E.’s, that right Meals Ready To Eat, the military buffet. Lol. I know what your thinking, Man, those are nasty! You may be right, but 7-14 of them stashed in the aft stowage area out of the way, just might save your life if worse comes to worse.
